8. The Entrepreneurial Life of Dr. Richard Harris, a Pharmacist, Physician, and Business Mastermind

🎙️ Meet Dr. Harris, a true Renaissance professional in the world of healthcare. Dr. Harris wears multiple hats as a board-certified internal medicine physician, pharmacist, professional speaker, investor, and the charismatic host of the Strive For Great Health Podcast. His extensive expertise extends far beyond the confines of traditional healthcare, making him a trailblazer in the industry.

📕 In this insightful blog post, we delve into the diverse facets of Dr. Harris's remarkable career:

1. Holistic Healthcare Visionary: Dr. Harris is not your typical healthcare professional. His holistic perspective on healthcare has been instrumental in guiding numerous pharmacy and medical startups through the intricacies of the healthcare market. Discover how his unique approach fosters innovation and holistic well-being.

2. Entrepreneur Extraordinaire: Dr. Harris's entrepreneurial spirit shines through as he takes on key leadership roles in healthcare organizations. As the Chief Medical Officer of Nimbus Healthcare, Medical Director of Script Health, and Co-founder of the 40 Acre Fund, he is driving positive change and innovation in the industry.

3. Medical Expertise: With board certification in internal medicine, Dr. Harris brings a wealth of medical knowledge to his endeavors. His dedication to patient care and well-being is at the core of his mission.

4. Pharmacy Proficiency: Dr. Harris's background as a pharmacist provides a unique perspective that bridges the gap between pharmacy and medicine. Learn how his dual expertise influences his approach to healthcare.

5. Educator and Influencer: Dr. Harris is a dynamic speaker and influencer, spreading knowledge and inspiration through his podcast, Strive For Great Health. Explore how he uses his platform to educate and empower individuals to take charge of their health.

6. Investment and Innovation: Dr. Harris's role as an investor underscores his commitment to fostering innovation in healthcare. Discover how his investments contribute to shaping the future of the industry.

📕 Join us as we celebrate the multifaceted career of Dr. Harris, a visionary professional who is reshaping healthcare from every angle. Whether you're a healthcare enthusiast, aspiring entrepreneur, or simply curious about the dynamic intersection of pharmacy and medicine, Dr. Harris's journey will inspire and enlighten. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from an extraordinary individual who embodies the spirit of innovation and holistic well-being in healthcare.

⚡️For more resources to get started, check out some of our other blog post content!

• The MCAT: Everything You Need To Know

• How Hard is Medical School

• Can you work while in Medical School? The Physician Pharmacist Do's and Don'ts

• 6 Most Common Questions About Transitioning From Pharmacy to Medicine

• The Art of Applying to Medical School (The Pharmacy Student Edition)!

🧠 Enjoying the podcast and want to listen to more? Visit The Physician Pharmacist Podcast for a list of episodes. Here's a featured episode below!

______________________________________________________________________________________

🥼 Complete Transcript of "The Entrepreneurial Life of Dr. Richard Harris, a Pharmacist, Physician, and Business Mastermind"

Nathan Gartland

Welcome to the physician pharmacist podcast, a show designed to shed some light on a very unusual pathway into medicine. I'm your host, Nathan Gartland. I'm a licensed pharmacist and third year medical student. I'm also the author of farm D to MD and the owner of the physician pharmacist company. Most pharmacy students and professional graduates are aware of the possibility of going to medical school, but very few actually take the leap. We are here to unpack some of these details and open your eyes the possibility of a career in both pharmacy and medicine. I'm very excited to have special guest Dr. Richard Harris on the show today. Dr. Harris is a board certified internal medicine physician, pharmacist, professional speaker, investor, and host of the strive for great health podcast. Dr. Harris is also an experienced life science consultant who has helped several pharmacy and medical startups navigate the healthcare market, especially from a holistic perspective. A true entrepreneur, Dr. Harris is the CMO of Nimbus healthcare, medical director of Scripps Health, and co founder of the 40 Acre Fund. Welcome to the show, Dr. Harris.

Richard Harris

Thank you so much for having me on this show, Nathan, and please call me Richard, we are definitely colleagues.

Nathan Gartland

Absolutely. So I kind of covered a lot of information there. So I You're obviously a very accomplished healthcare professional and business entrepreneur. And I think it's important to highlight that this long journey started with you getting your pharmacy degree from the University of Texas at Austin, what initially drew you into the world of pharmacy?

Richard Harris

So it's pretty funny. I always say that my career path can only be designed by God because it's crazy, like no one else would dream of this when they were a kid, I'm gonna go do what was it like 15 years of school, right? It's just a lot of school. So in undergrad, I was I was always interested in math and science. And I went into UT being a physics major, I wanted to do biomedical physics and make prosthetics got to differential equations. It was like, Nope, I'm out. Let me go. Let me switch into my other love, which was biology. So I really was really interested in biochemistry, I thought I wanted to do bench research, did bench research on two years studying fetal alcohol syndrome and realize I can't do this for the rest of my life, spending time in a lab. And I was a junior I was going to graduate the next year, I was freaking out. I didn't know what I wanted to do. And the dean of the pharmacy school was whose lab I worked in. And he said, Richard, I think you'd make a good pharmacist wanted to apply to pharmacy school here. I said, okay, cool. I had no idea what a pharmacist did knew nothing about pharmacy school had never worked in a pharmacy. Did my PCAT had all the prereqs and applied and loved it absolutely love what I was learning. Realize my first year in pharmacy school that I wanted to go to medical school. My dream as a kid was to be a doctor. I used to read books, gifted hands by Ben Carson was kind of the book that really got me interested in being a physician. I wanted to be a surgeon, but I have a benign tremor. So I realized that I would never be a surgeon. So that first year after pharmacy school first year, I said, I'm gonna go to medical school, but I'm 21 I'm in Austin, I'm having the time of my life. I love what I'm learning. So I'm gonna finish this out. I've never quit anything in my life. And I'm not about to quit pharmacy school. So by the time I applied to medical school, my last year of pharmacy school, I had got early accepted into UTMB. I ended up going to UT Houston, but I knew I was in medical school before I even finished pharmacy school. I just delayed it a year because I wanted to work and know what it felt like to actually make money and not be broke, you know, all throughout my 20s. Right. So that was really the start of my journey into pharmacy school. And in medical school.

Nathan Gartland

Wow, that's fascinating. And I think it's so interesting that you jumped into pharmacy without having like any experience in the field like prior to like working in retail. I know that's a common way that a lot of people take interest in the profession is working as a pharmacy technician, and then they kind of progress up to the intern level and then apply through to get into school and whatnot. So I think that's fascinating. It's also really interesting that you were interested in medical school since pretty much the first year of pharmacy school. For myself, I didn't really I didn't have that epiphany until much later in professional track. So I think that's, that's fascinating that you had the, the wherewithal to finish out the whole program another three years after that first year. So kudos to you for doing that. And so it sounds like your whole track was spent on getting to medical school at that point you had that that you were accepted before you even graduated pharmacy school. Was there ever a chance that you could have cancer They're doing like a pharmacy residency during that one gap gap year in between.

Richard Harris

I had thought about that. And it's not like it is now, you know, now you have all kinds of direct prescriptive authority. And I think that's going to expand for pharmacists, I think pharmacists are going to expand very heavily into wellness and preventative care and just your bread and butter primary care stuff, to where they can operate as a prescriber. But in 2008, when I graduated pharmacy school that none of that was there. And so I thought about doing a residency. But what really bothered me was the fact that I could do all the stuff a prescriber could do in a hospital setting, and maybe a clinic, but I wasn't allowed to do that same thing. Under my own authority, I had to be under someone else's authority. And that kind of bothered me. The other reason was, I remember when I came out, pharmacists were not getting a lot of respect, and my rotations and that angered me, and I said, I'm going to show all these physicians exactly what a pharmacist knows. And I remember my first year as an intern, usually attendings, you know, how they it is they they're watching the interns like a hawk. The upper levels are watching interns like a hawk. I was running teams, my first month, they were like, Oh, you're the pharmacist. Okay, cool. attendings been practicing for 10 years. What should we do about this? So I had that trust from day one. And I had this profound knowledge base on how you treated pretty much everything. And I learned how you diagnose things. And so I started off years ahead of my other colleagues. And I really began to mold my view on things when I was in residency, because I've always been more holistic. I've always been interested in exercise and nutrition. I love lifting weights, I did a powerlifting club in college and, and absolutely loved learning about all the things the body is capable of. And so once I got into residency, I started to really learn about the holistic side of things that escalated as soon as I got out of residency and started practicing on my own.

Nathan Gartland

Wow, I love that. And like kind of building off of what you were saying with that the medical background with pharmacy and having such a broad foundation. I definitely agree with that, in the sense that having this pharmacy background, medical schools don't even cover any of the second third line options. And having that pharmacy background has helped substantially when it comes to optimizing medical care, just so much that I've seen on clinical rotations thus far. It's been very, very helpful. And I'm curious to know to what, what was your opinion, everyone always wants to ask me like, oh, how does medical school compared to pharmacy school? I'm curious to hear like what your take was and how they kind of compared with the rigor content volume, something along those lines?

Richard Harris

Yeah, I always tell people that pharmacy school was harder. And that's because, you know, you've been through the first two years of medical school, the classroom portion. There's so much material that you're not going nearly as in depth, as you do on certain subjects in pharmacy school. Because we go into debt. I mean, pharmacokinetics is still the hardest class I've ever taken. It's harder than organic chemistry, harder than the physics classes, I've taken harder than some of these upper level math classes that I took. That class was really hard. And so it prepared me so well for medical school. That number one, when I took pharmacology in medical school, I would finish like 100 Question tests in like five minutes, because it was it was nowhere near the level of depth that we will go into. And then I actually worked as a first and second year medical student, I worked at MD Anderson, the place I worked at, and that gap year. And I remember I got in trouble because they it was frowned upon to work while you're in medical school. And I was like, Well, I'm still making good grades. I'm happy. I have money to pay for stuff like what's the problem? So, you know, it was a very unique journey, because of two reasons. Number one, I actually had work experience, most of my classmates who come into medical school have never worked a job before in their life. And then if they have, it's mainly you know, the typical college level job where you don't have responsibilities or very entry level stuff. And then number two, I had already been through grad school, I already knew what to expect. I already knew how I studied well, how much I needed to study. I already knew how professors at the grad school level thought and so it was very easy for me to go through medical school because of the background that pharmacy school got me.

Nathan Gartland

I love that too. Yeah, I've also worked actually the past two years of the didactic portion of medical school and I agree entirely I just having that exposure to get back out into the pharmacy world, I think was refreshing in a sense, but also kind of kept me on my toes when it came to like professionalism and not falling into the, I guess the mindset that I'm a student, again, in the sense that I'm a licensed pharmacist, and I'm able to practice at the full extent of my license. And I think it was just such a cool thing. On top of that, obviously, making money certainly helps keep me off of the ramen diet. But I really enjoyed that experience. And I'm glad that you did as well. And I kind of want to hear a little bit more too about the reason that you chose internal medicine as a profession.

Richard Harris

That if I had to do over again, I would change interest. And the reason I chose internal medicine, because coming from pharmacy school is the path of least resistance. So you know, you've been through this, it's such a grind. And by the time I got done with fourth year of medical school, I was like, I just want the easiest path possible to get me this MD, whatever's easiest. I don't want to do like a five year residency, I don't want to do fellowship, I just want to be done. Because I only took a year off, right, that probably wasn't enough time off, to really reset. And, and so I just went into what I already knew. And being a pharmacist in internal medicine is the easiest thing to go into. Because what are you doing all day, you're mostly talking about medications, you're talking about biomarkers, and you're doing preventative care, cool. I learned like 95% of that. In pharmacy school already. There's a high background already had. And so if I had to do it over again, I would have gone into pathology, and interesting. I really love root cause medicine. And I have a friend who's a pathologist and an internal medicine physician. And she's awesome. Because she's like, Yeah, I've looked at these organs. Under the microscope, I see what happens. At the physiological level, I understand the biochemistry and all the root mechanisms. And then she takes that and she uses that information to be an amazing holistic practitioner. I'm like, that's so cool. Because at my root, I love mechanisms. And I love learning about the biochemistry and then the applied biochemistry. And I think that if I had done that route, I probably would have been more okay, being a full time physician, I probably would have done some entrepreneurial stuff on the side. But I just didn't like where internal medicine was going, and all of the administrative burden that you have on internal medicine. And that's when I said after about a year and a half of doing it. I asked myself, Richard, could you do this when you're 60? And the answer was no, absolutely not. I can't see myself doing this when I'm 60. So how do I figure out what I actually want to do when I'm 60?

Nathan Gartland

That's interesting, too, that you mentioned that pathology for as a medical student, I kind of think of that role as only being you know, working in a laboratory in the basement, something along those lines. But I think it's really cool that you can blend both the biochemical aspect as well as the clinical stuff where you're getting involved with patients. And you're actually that doing working hand in glove with patients. I think that's fascinating. And I didn't really know that that was a possibility. So I'll have to keep that on my differential. And so you you became an attending physician, did you ever consider fellowships?

Richard Harris

Briefly, I was really interested in critical care, mostly because I was good at it. I was very cool under pressure. I didn't freak out. I love the ICU because I felt like you could actually make a difference. And I was also really interested in oncology just because of my work at MD Anderson. But I think oncology was another path of least resistance because I knew the cancer drugs so well, because I've worked in cancer, pharmaceuticals for the longest time, right for a couple years. And so I hit a wall in my second year of residency when I was getting together applications trying to figure out which one I wanted to do. And I said, I can't I can't do three more years of this just let me get done and then figure out what I want to do after that.

Nathan Gartland

right not to mention you could have potentially had to have moved to another location and all that other stuff that kind of goes along with fellowships. So I've definitely considered them as well but I think it's something I'll have to reassess as I get closer and closer towards that finish line. I'm sure it gets harder to to justify continuing on but especially after doing you know pharmacy school all these years of up For level graduate education, it definitely wears you down a little bit. But um, so after after you had been practicing for a few years, you I noticed that you also elected to get your Masters of Business Administration. So your MBA and I'm curious to know what prompted you to further your educational pursuits along those lines, you mentioned that you wanted to be done. You couldn't see yourself practicing as a physician in internal medicine at 60 years old. So I guess it was this that avenue that you considered?

Richard Harris

Yeah. So one of the things my dad taught me, and this happened after he was laid off from his job, he was out of work for eight months, it was really hard on him. And the position he was trying to get, he didn't have the right certificate, and he didn't get it when he was younger. And he told me, he was like, never forget, he said, Don't get a certificate or an education or something. Because you think you might not need it in the future, said, if you have an inkling that you might need it or that you want it, he's up put in the time because you never know exactly what your future self is going to want to do. And that really stuck with me. And it's why so many times in my career, I've, like had a conversation with future me and asked myself, will I be upset if I don't do this? Will I be mad at myself if I do this? And the NBA, I really wanted to change systems involved in medicine. And and I saw this area where you had people who are clinical not understand business, and people who are business not understand clinical. And like, wait a minute, there's an opportunity here. And so I originally wanted to do healthcare administration, I wanted to work in a hospital system, or a clinic system, and be that bridge. And while I was in my MBA program, that's when I got the entrepreneurial bug. I hadn't really never thought about being an entrepreneur until that program. And that's when I launched the functional medicine clinic, moved it online, about eight months before COVID started. And then I was posting stuff online, you know, trying to drum up business. And then I started getting people reaching out to me for consulting opportunities. I said, Hmm, okay, let me do this. And so now I have 11 consulting clients, and I do medical liaison work. So I'll talk to investors or other stakeholders about the company and about it from the medical perspective. I do content creation, I do business development. I also do talks. I work mostly with supplement and with health tech companies. I have media. So I have a podcast, I have online courses. I'm a professional speaker, I traveled all around the country talking about holistic medicine. And that came out of the post to that I would do online people like Hey, I like your stuff. Do you do speaking? Sure. So I started doing paid speaking. And then came the next thing I do, because of the consulting, I would get offers, or I would hear about startups looking for funding. And because I knew the pharmacy space very well, I knew the medical space very well. And I understood business, I could take a look at these opportunities and be like, hey, this actually solves a problem that I've identified. Not only that, I'm going to invest, and I'm also going to advise for you because I understand this market. So I started doing that as well. And the final thing is telehealth. So I had when I moved my practice online, I had that for like eight or nine months. And then as these other things started to come up, I ramped down the practice. And then we had an opportunity to do something in the personalized medicine space for hair loss. And so me and my business partner, we started Nimbus healthcare. And we're utilizing direct to consumer genetic tests with a compounding pharmacy to custom compound, topical solutions for hair restoration. And so all of these things started to pop up just because I started exploring other opportunities. And because I, I could see things like a pharmacist, I can my pharmacy license is still active. I can talk to other doctors, I understand how everything works being internal medicine, you know, you know about every single piece of the healthcare system. And then I can analyze things from a business perspective as well. And so that combination is truly unique and allows me to do all the things I'm doing today. And so I'm really grateful that I put in all those years of hard work. I thank God for guiding me, because now I get to do a little bit of a lot of different things, and it's really exciting to me.

Nathan Gartland

Wow, isn't it fascinating to how you You slowly gain momentum. And things just get easier and easier and more doors open as they go, it kind of snowballs to the point where you're like, wow, where to look at all these business ventures that I have. I think that's just fantastic. And you've, you've obviously grown with every one of these businesses and learn new skills that you've utilized for, you know, future businesses. So I love hearing all about that I'm personally interested in getting my MBA as well, just to kind of broaden those perspectives, like you mentioned. And so, I guess explore the business side of things. And I've definitely considered hospital administration kind of being that connection between some of the more business minded individuals who may or may not have a medical background, who might be in charge of particular areas in the hospital and kind of being that liaison to the healthcare professionals who who lack that business. Education. So I think it's just such a cool role that you you're living right now. So I envy you. So and I loved I love talking about business as well. So what was like your initial, how did you I guess, broach the idea? Like when you sat down and said, I want to start a business or I want to start you know, Nimbus healthcare, how did that really come into effect?

Richard Harris

It's kind of funny. Most of my businesses have been conversations. So Nimbus, my business partner and I, we started a company called Alpha therapeutics. And we were having a conversation one day, because we both did a lot in the hormone space. And people kept asking, Hey, is there anything natural I could take? And we would say, yeah, there is. But you got to mix and match things. And we were having a conversation like, Hey, we should just make our own. And I laughed about it, he laughed about it. And then, like, a couple days later, I texted, I was like, Hey, man, I've been thinking about this, we should do it. He goes, I've been thinking about it, too. Let's do it. So we started that. And so we'd already been working together on that when we got this other opportunity for this genetic hair loss thing. And so we said that there's a huge market here, we both understood personalized medicine. In my practice, I've been using nutrigenomics, to customize Supplement Plans, and also lifestyle plans for people based upon their genetics, and so already understood that market. He's been in the compounding world for over a decade. And so we just saw an opportunity and we took it. It's the same thing with the consulting, I was just out there creating my own personal brand as a subject matter expert, because I always liked speaking. And so I said, Well, if I just put information out here and show that my information has value, and that I can deliver it in a certain way, I'll probably pick up more speaking gigs. And initially, I didn't get any speaking gigs. But I got people reaching out to me saying, hey, it seems like you have this knowledge base. And we're looking for that. Do you do consulting? And of course, the first person who asked I was like, Yeah, I do consulting, I have zero consulting clients, zero experience, right. And so I'm just making it up on the fly. But admit, I began to niche down and be able to really offer legitimate services to my consulting clients. And so like most things in my life, when, when an opportunity has come my way, I'll evaluate it. And if I like it, even if I don't really know what I'm doing in that space, I'll just say yes. And just kind of figure it out on the way.

Nathan Gartland

That's such a great mentality to I think it's just fascinating, because, you know, you ask any anyone and say, Oh, I'm going to start a pharmaceutical company. And they'll just kind of laugh at you and say, How are you even going to possibly do that? And here you are, and the other other side of things thinking, how can I do this? Who do I need to find to make this happen? Do I need to go find the individual with all this compounding experience? Who can help facilitate this the growth of this company, and then taking it to new heights? I think it's just it's fascinating that you're doing all that. And additionally, kind of latching on to the side of you your business side of things. You mentioned that you have your own podcasts strive for great health. Can you tell me a little bit more about what prompted you to create this media source? And what do you typically discuss on this on the show?

Richard Harris

Yeah, I guess that was my first business. Although I don't directly monetize my podcast, I indirectly monetize, because I license out my content to my consulting clients. But the podcast started when I was first thinking about entrepreneurship. I started putting these videos out on Facebook, because, you know, you see it as a clinician people asked me the same stuff all the time. And I was like, Well, how can I answer these questions in a way that that I like? And it was like, Okay, you can start a blog or you can just start posting videos, and I hate writing. So I was like, Okay, let me just start doing these Facebook videos. And then eventually it got to the point where I get like, 1000 views per video and I was like, Well, I guess there's some here if people are viewing myself 1000 times I guess they liked what I'm saying. So I asked My Facebook audience at the time, I said, Hey, if I started a podcast, would you guys listen? And like 120 people were like, yes, start the podcast. So if 120 people tell you to do something, you probably should do it. Right. So I was like, I didn't know anything about podcasting. So I was like, well, like you said, Who do I know that can help me with this. And luckily, I had a friend who was about to start a podcast. And she was like, hey, you need to talk to my friend oziel. He's a podcast coach. So I said, Cool. So I hired oziel. He helped me craft my podcast branding, and the mantra and the flow of my podcast, and really helped me diagram what I wanted to start with which the first episodes are about the root causes of chronic disease, because I really wanted people to understand that. Number one, chronic disease is a lot of them are preventable. Number two, that some of them can be reversed. Or you can minimize the amount of medication you're on by your lifestyle habits. And so these are the things that I talked about, I talked about alternative treatments that are evidence based. Like for example, a study just came out a couple of weeks ago, maybe it was last week, that looked at mindfulness, randomized controlled trial versus Lexapro. This is a follow pram, and it showed that the mindfulness intervention was not inferior to escitalopram. And that's amazing, right? Because say, someone doesn't want to take medication. Okay, now I have something in my toolbox that is proven in a randomized controlled trial to be just as effective for anxiety. And so these are the things I talk about on, you know, my social media and my podcast, I just really want people to know that there's other things they can do besides medication. And that also, you know, you being a pharmacist, you know, this, if you start looking at, like, the absolute risk reduction, for a lot of these medications, you'd be people will be shocked at the numbers, if they actually looked at what is your absolute risk reduction of taking, you know, your blood pressure medication, or your cholesterol medication or your diabetes medication, they be shocked. And so I want people to know that, hey, you cannot just depend on medication to fix you. It doesn't work like that. There's no medication that can overcome your habits and your lifestyle. And so, these are the things I talked about in the podcast, it's been an incredible journey. It's been so much fun. I've had people all over the world reach out to me and tell me how much it's helped them or change the way they think about their health or help them get started on a health journey. And that's really cool. Because being an entrepreneur, it's like yourself, you start to think about, how do I scale? Right? Being a doctor is not scalable. It just isn't, you have a max you have you can only there's really like, there's a ceiling. There's you can there's only so many patients you can take care of, and provide high quality care. But if I put information out there, if I have a startup that's working on systems, if I'm helping health tech companies make health care better, that's infinitely scalable.

Nathan Gartland

Absolutely, I think that's such a great point right there. And I love how you mentioned to with the just talking about that study there. As a pharmacist, pharmacists, there's this common joke that they're the least compliant of all healthcare professionals, it's because we know what goes into these drugs and, and all the side effects associated with them. So if there are interventions that can minimize, you know, over prescribing or polypharmacy, I think that's, that's great that they're coming out with so many good studies about it. So I love hearing about that. And additionally, I'm kind of curious to kind of blending the pharmacy and the physician role. We kind of talked about it briefly a few minutes ago, but the pharmacy profession tends to get a little bit of resistance, I think, from physicians sometimes when they're making recommendations. And I'm curious to see what your take is on how do we break down some of these walls between the professions and open up better lines of communication? Obviously, you're doing so through consulting. So I'm curious to see how can we do this from on a broader scale, scaling it up to maybe a national

Richard Harris

level? Yeah, I think that we have to break down the silos, right. And we know that the best outcomes and this is data proven is when you have a care team and that a pharmacist is an integral part of a care team. And you've seen there are studies showing reduction in cost reduction, adverse effects, increased compliance, right, just better overall outcomes when you have a pharmacist involved. And physicians are Prickly, and they really don't like listening to non physicians. And this is not just a physician thing. I work a lot with law enforcement officers and they don't like listening to people who aren't in law enforcement. Right. And I think it takes makes people like us, who can bridge the gap who say, Who can say no, here's all the value that a pharmacist can bring. And I think you have to look at the way you're framing things. Nobody likes to be wrong, right? Instead of a pharmacist calling you, you're wrong, you've done something wrong. But it's how you frame it and say, No, it's not that you you're did something wrong, even though you did. It's about, Hey, I found this. And I think it would be better for the patient, and you get better outcomes if you did this. And here's why. And I like to have databases of things. So one of the things I did when I was in primary care, because I couldn't talk about all the lifestyle medicine stuff was I had to pronounce. And so if you're seeing the same stuff over and over again, just keep quick references about studies that you can do. And so just send this that, hey, I think this would be get a better outcome for your patient. And here's the study behind it. All right, and the physician, how are they going to say no, in that situation, right? You've presented them with a better outcome and hard data showing why you think there's going to be a better outcome. And then it's just collaboration and forming a bond, right? Knowing that physician, Hey, what are you comfortable with? What do you like? How, what do you prescribe for this? You know, how do you treat this? Okay, cool. Like that's, that's good that you're treating it like this. But have you looked at this data? And have you looked at this from this approach? I think you could get better outcomes. And as we proliferate into pharmacogenetics, and having a pharmacist on the team who's proficient in pharmacogenetics, that's just going to make things so much easier for everyone involved. Because, as you know, how many times does someone get started on a medication and be like, oh, that didn't work. Let me try a different medication class. That didn't work. Let me try a different medication, the class, it's like Whack a Mole. But having that pharmacist down in there who's proficient in pharmacogenetics can help you really take a better estimate of the first time that you work with that patient and getting it right. Because you can only get it wrong with somebody so many times before they lose interest, right. And also, having a pharmacist on board is going to help make sure that they're on the medications that they really need to be on. And I think that younger physicians are more open to this collaborative approach than older physicians, because older physicians grew up in a kill what you eat type of type of environment, to where other practitioners were your competition. Now, since most physicians are employed, it's you don't really look at it like that. It's not competition, everybody's just trying to get the best outcome for that patient. And I'm really excited about the collaboration that we're going to see and that we're already seeing between physicians and pharmacists.

Back to the top!